The Canadian Media Guild has been chosen as the sole body to represent the interests of most CBC employees, winning over the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in a hotly contested election last month. The results, announced Dec. 15, showed the CMG with 2,542 votes compared to 1,717 for the CEP.

‘It’s going to be very good for the CBC,’ says CMG president Lise Lareau, a producer at CBC Newsworld.

Lareau sees three major challenges ahead for the newly expanded CMG: finding out what the upcoming federal budget has in store for the pubcaster; seeing how CBC’s further integration of TV and radio will affect jobs; and overseeing the consolidation of the CEP and CMG cultures. She is optimistic on the latter point based on some positive early meetings with former CEP leaders within the CBC. The CMG expects to receive its new bargaining certificate this month.

Prior to the mail-in election, the CMG repped more than 4,000 employees at the pubcaster, including editorial and production workers as well as administrative, clerical and sales staff, while the CEP repped 1,800 technical and trades employees at the Corp. All of these employees will now look to the CMG as their bargaining unit. The election does not affect CBC supervisors or managers, or employees in Quebec and Moncton, NB, who are repped by local unions.

The election came about because the CBC wanted to deal with only one union due to costs, and governing body the Canada Industrial Relations Board agreed.

While it was widely assumed voters would support whichever union they belonged to at the time of the election, the results indicate the CEP swayed some CMG members. While CMG repped 69% of the electorate, it received only 59% of votes.

The CEP campaigned primarily on the fact that while it is an entirely Canadian union, based in Ottawa, the Toronto-based CMG is a local of the Newspaper Guild of Canada, which is affiliated with the Communication Workers of America. The CEP is also known as a more militant group, mainly for its involvement in a strike at the CBC in 1999 and a lockout in 2001. The CMG, on the other hand, has never called a strike at the pubcaster.

Referring to the CMG’s dip at the polls, Lareau points out that before the election, as many as 1,000 CMG members were only part-time workers at the pubcaster, and therefore did not have as much incentive to send in their ballots. Nonetheless, voter turnout overall was healthy at approximately 71%. There were 40 spoiled ballots and 90 were disputed.

Peter Murdoch, national VP, media at the CEP, says his organization accepts the democratic system, but is disappointed.

‘We still believe – and I think eventually it will come true – that CBC employees should be in a Canadian union and particularly in Canada’s largest media union,’ he says.

Lareau, meanwhile, downplays the CEP’s claims that the CMG is not truly Canadian, arguing that the CWA is only involved with it at arm’s length.

‘In every way possible, CMG is autonomous,’ she says. ‘All of our financial decisions are made here. All the dues that we collect come here. We hire our own staff, we have our own office, and we negotiate our own collective agreements. What we get out of the CWA relationship is a huge strike fund and a network of other broadcasters and people generally in the media across North America.’

Meanwhile, the CEP has recently signed a merger document with a union repping staffers at a Global CH affiliate, and other recent converts can be found at CHUM’s CFPL, Sportsnet and Corus.

-www.cmg.ca

-www.cep.ca